Politics

Anthony Weiner's Incredibly Shrinking Campaign for New York City Mayor

by David Freedlander

Are the wheels coming off the Weiner mobile?

It certainly looks that way, after the campaign manager of the Anthony Weiner comeback tour quit abruptly over the weekend, leaving the campaign rudderless with just six weeks until primary day.

Against a tepid New York City mayoral field, Weiner rode a tsunami of media coverage into first place in some summertime polls, but this week has brought nothing but bad news for the Weiner campaign. On Tuesday, it was revealed that his illicit communications with women online continued after he quit Congress in a sexting scandal. The tabloids have been ruthless in their mockery and have even begun to single out his wife, Huma Abedin—a longtime Hillary Clinton aide—for opprobrium. Meanwhile, national Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama campaign mastermind David Axelrod, have urged Weiner to quit the race.

Questions about Weiner’s cyber-habits have turned the once-sleepy mayoral race into a spectacle, with hordes of press from around the world following Weiner at routine campaign stops. On Friday, Weiner had one campaign event, a stop on the southern tip of Staten Island, as far as reporters could possibly travel in a New York City election. He still was greeted by a phalanx of cameras and microphones, and one elderly woman, a retired assistant principal, angrily confronted him in front of the press, telling him she would have been fired for engaging in behavior like his. She also refused to shake his hand, announcing, “Who the hell knows where it’s been?”